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On Monday, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels by 2030, precipitating the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people. Extremely serious though this is, it's not the only risk facing us all in the future.

What is changing?

Summary

Radar: Top subject risks identified by the robot are increasing use of plastics entering food chains, faults in and attacks on software, intensifying competition, climate change affecting farming, disease spread, particularly increasing diabetes, uncertainties surrounding the continued burning of fossil fuels and rapidly growing use of scarce resources to cope with burgeoning demand from global populations' increased wealth and needs.

Graphit: By 2025, Athena's 25,000+ sources think that energy uncertainties surrounding gas and coal will strengthen as more sustainable renewable energies threaten their continued use. Climate change too will be accelerating causing insurance companies to develop new business models to cope with increasing flood risks. And, cybersecurity will continue to a threat as well as evermore intensifying competition for business.

The high negative sentiments are expressed towards environmental change, bond and other financial and security risks.

Pie Charts: Athena calculates that the tipping point for these risks, suggested by aggregating the views of all experts in the system, is around 2038 (The tipping point is when 33% of citizens believe that the changes have occurred have always been the status quo of modern living).

Similarly, those same sources collectively rank the risk issue as Low with the future Impact measured in Billions. Only 21% place these risks in an already evolving and gaining traction state with 77% considering them weak signals.

Once again, China's future policies rank highest on possible uncertainties while Norway's intense drive to achieve zero energy emissions is a sign of change that may soon be adopted by most of the developed world with resulting disruption to the traditional energy sector. Financial services and Government stand out as two sectors ripe for uncertainty and disruption in the coming years.

Geographies: The new City by City map show that the United States is most likely to be seriously affected by climate change in the future because of potential, high infrastructural damage while European Cities tackle the issue with far more urgency and concern and Asia seemingly just bears it.

Leaders: The United States, China and the UK head the list of countries with the most risks primarily due to current trade disputes and Brexit while the EU too grapples with migration issues, increasing nationalism and the UK leaving its club.

Not surprisingly, technology and the global economy head the list of risks. Technology comes out tops because of concerns surrounding increasingly networked worlds, the Internet of Things, Driverless Cars and Robots which may be hacked, break or run amok with unknown consequences.

And, by far the biggest human risk as identified by our 25,000 professional sources is the President of United States. It remains to be seen just how much of a risk he will prove to be to our futures or how long he will have the power to change the world.

Analysis

Radar
Top subject risks identified by the robot are increasing use of plastics entering food chains, faults in and attacks on software, intensifying competition, climate change affecting farming, disease spread, particularly increasing diabetes, uncertainties surrounding the continued burning of fossil fields and rapidly growing use of scarce resources to cope with burgeoning demand from global population increase and wealth.

Graph-It
By 2025, Athena's 25,000+ sources think that energy uncertainties surrounding gas and coal will strengthen as more sustainable renewable energies threaten their continued use. Climate change too will be accelerating causing insurance companies to develop new business models to cope with increasing flood risks. And, cybersecurity will continue to a threat as well as evermore intensifying competition for business.

Pie charts
Athena calculates that the tipping point for these risks, suggested by aggregating the views of all experts in the system, is around 2038 (The tipping point is when 33% of citizens believe that the changes have occurred have always been the status quo of modern living).

Similarly, those same sources collectively rank the risk issue as Low with the future Impact measured in Billions. Only 21% place these risks in an already evolving and gaining traction state with 77% considering them weak signals.

Heat Map
Once again, China's future policies rank highest on possible uncertainties while Norway's intense drive to achieve zero energy emissions is a sign of change that may soon be adopted by most of the developed world with resulting disruption to the traditional energy sector. Financial services and Government stand out as two sectors ripe for uncertainty and disruption in the coming years.

Geographies
The new City by City map show that the United States is most likely to be seriously affected by climate change in the future because of potential, high infrastructural damage while European Cities tackle the issue with far more urgency and concern and Asia seemingly just bears it.

Leaders
The United States, China and the UK head the list of countries with the most risks primarily due to current trade disputes and Brexit while the EU too grapples with migration issues, increasing nationalism and Brexit.

Not surprisingly, technology and the global economy head the list of risks. Technology comes out tops because of concerns surrounding increasingly networked worlds, the Internet of Things, Driverless Cars and Robots which may be hacked, break or run amok with unknown consequences.

And, by far the biggest human risk as identified by our 25,000 professional sources is the President of United States. It remains to be seen just how much of a risk he will prove to be to our futures or how long he will have the power to change the world.

Evidence

Extracted forecasts found by Athena and linked back to the original articles, reports and PowerPoints (Insights) that she found can be found below using this search term:

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Sources
Athena used the sources below as the top ones to create this report and determined which embedded forecasts are included in this Trend Alert. She found 20,551 forecasts in seconds on 11th October 2018 to allow us to publish this report in less than ninety minutes. She can turn these into PowerPoint slides and Audio files in minutes too as you wish, or we can prepare a full customized and professionally written brief for you to order covering all these forecasts.

Athena

Athena does show duplicates to aid your understanding of themes as well as contradictory forecasts. She may also show near-duplicates. You can speed read past the duplicates and near-duplicates if you wish, though the latter may show additional information. You can use the contradictory, and likely uncertain forecasts she finds to imagine different scenarios. The future is unpredictable, but we can examine the possibilities and choose our preferable future from the choices she presents.

Athena is apolitical. She will report forecasts from different viewpoints however distasteful that might be to our own values. Wearing rose-colored glasses is not her purpose; reporting potential futures is. So, we recommend you check her veracity before responding to her extracted forecasts.

Just like humans, Athena can be fallible. Do recognize that you and your associates are biased too. But whereas you tire, make mistakes and only recognize what interests you, she does not. She might miss or misinterpret as you do, but with far less frequency and she'll take uncomfortable truths and alternative ideas in her stride. But, please let us know if you feel her bias can be reduced. We want to do our best for you. And, as with any research, you should check and triangulate her findings for yourself.

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